Caldwell County MO Archives History .....FIRST OBSERVANCE OF MEMORIAL DAY IN HAMILTON 
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Karen Walker khw4@yahoo.com September 4, 2008, 1:37 pm

FIRST OBSERVANCE OF MEMORIAL DAY IN HAMILTON
	Narrator:  John Prough, 76, Hamilton

     Mr. Prough, the narrator died the spring of 1935, soon after this 
interview.  He was sexton for a while in his younger days at the Highland 
cemetery in Hamilton.
     It was on May 30 1888 that Decoration Day was first observed in Hamilton, 
as Mr. Prough remembers.  The old Union soldiers met in Squire Van 
Volkenburg's office and got up plans for the day.  There had been no time 
after this meeting to announce the decoration idea in the town paper, so it 
had to be spread by word of mouth.  Many did  not know why the band was 
playing, but a good number helped in the ceremonies by flowers and the 
parade.  The parade formed in front of the Methodist church and all the 
soldiers marched out to the two graveyards.  About 75 teams were in line.  The 
soldiers were under Col Harper and decorated the 18 graves of the Union 
soldiers.  There were about 50 G.A.R. men in their blue uniforms, marching 
with their old fashioned swaying step.
     Mr. Prough believed that Butler was still playing his fife.  There were 
about 1000 people at the new cemetery, which at that time was the common 
designation for Highland.  The new cemetery then was much more thinly 
populated than now, and the old cemetery did not have the desolated ruined 
look of today.  At that time, few of the graves except the soldiers were 
decorated, but the next year many private individuals took up the idea.
     Rev. Ware of the M.E. church gave the oration at the cemetery on a 
speaker's stand which stood about where the tall George Rogers monument now 
stands.
     Interview  1935.


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